ELECTRIC S IN RAILWAY SERVICE.
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Facts and Figures of the Midland Railway Collection and Delivery System Which Promises to Usher in a New Era in Road Motor Transport.
FOR MANY YEARS past the railway companies of these islands have been accused of lacking enterprise in motorizing their inter-urban collecting and distributing systems. To the advocates of the motor movement their apparent lethargy was construed into an attitude of absolute indifference, if not veiled hostility. Accordingly, the railways were accused of passively kustrating the. general trend to speed up vehicular traffic and to relieve street congestion. Unfortunately, the railway man regards all revolutionary movements from the cold and hard-commercial viewpoint. ".What will it bring in on the sovereign I" constitutes the Alpha and Omega of his reasoning. To him, traffic must be resolved into -a complete array of statistics, chased out to the minute fraction of the penny, before he will be convinced. Rig craft is so peculiar, the character of the traffic handled so diverse, as to place his business on a plane by itself. Consideration from a thousand and one different angles, which are never encountered in ordinary commercial operations, is imperative.
So far as the handling of freight is concerned, whether it be bulk or miscellaneous small parcels, it must be regarded not independently, but in relation to the whole. The rate levied is a through one, including the expenses of collection and delivery at either end,. plus conveyance by rail, and the off-raii charges must be kept down to the minimum : at all events, their respective allowances are restricted.
But, while we thought the railway cco,epanies were sleeping, they were really working hard. In this peculiar field, months and ,years of preliminarywork are pursued relentlessly before any outward sign of such activity becomes revealed. "Make haste slowly" is the axiom which has been handed down from the
c32 pioneers to the workers of to-day, and it is at this moment that the need to hasten slowly is most manifest. We do not mean to infer that the railways have
refrained from embracing motor transport. They have not. Mechanical movement of road traffic has been pursued actively in certain directions as we all know very well. But it is as nothing to what is going to be done in the future, and that day is much nearer than'many of us may possibly imagine. The marshalling of the figures is relatively complete: decisions have been made : the precise suitability of this or that form of motor traction has been determined.
The pace has been apparently slow for one simple. reason. Among the railways there is a .certain freeMasonry. It is not peculiar to these islands, but is common to all countries. When a new idea-is under
contemplation, the various companies do not attack the iissue individually. They allow the experiment to be carried right through te its logical conclusion by one of their number, in the full knowledge that if the resultant scheme is successful and completely satisfactory to one, the pioneer, then it must be equally suitable to all the others, inasmuch as. the working
conditions are common to all.
Thus it will be seen that, enterprise is really subservient to the initiative of one of their number. If there be a general lethargic tendency, it is likely to affect all and to postpone, the adoption of any new idea, although contrary to general opinion, :perhaps,there are many go-ahead individual companies forming the network comprising Britain's railway system. Such a one is the Midland Railway. For many years past this company has been deliberating upon the motorization of its street traffic. not piecemeal, but as a complete whole. It has been collecting data of a comprehensive charaoter, and has
prepared •reams of graphs bearing upon every conceivable phase of the issue. During 1914 the preliminaries were completed 'and all was reaclyefor the launching of the new scheme. It merely remained now to ascertain from praatical application how far the graphs and data would be supported'.
The question was far mare striking than many might be .disposed to believe. Three typas of prime metier were .competing for recognition—steam, the internalcombustion motor, and electricity respectively. Now the bulk of a railway's collecting and delivery business is carried out within easy reach of the railway station, be if..in town, city, or village. The issue to decide was the system which would best satisfy the largest field. The Midland discovered that electricity offered the greatest advantages for this work, and, accordingly, it has plumped for this system.
Horse or Electric ? _ .
The first move was taken in June, 1915, by the-introduction of a 30-cwt. ,parcels Vail in London. During the previous Christmas season—when railway traffic ie at its highest pressure—trials were made with electric vehicles in the Metropolis, and these experiments, so far as the conditions would permit, served to demonstrate that the right move was being taken. The initial owned van clinched the argument, and to such effect that, at the moment, the company. has a fleet of 76 vehicles in service, not only in London but in several provincial towns as well. Expansion to day is governed by the cost of these vehicles and the facility with-which they can be 'obtained. ITT) to the present a tound £60,000 has been sunk in the enterprise, and the directors of the company are prepared to invest as much again, if not more, but the moment is not considered opportune. The capital cost of the vehicle must be reduced by at least 50 per cent, as a preliminary to such a development. Incidentally, it may be observed that the Midland Railway is not the, only company waiting upon a decided reduction in the cost of the vehicle ; other companies which have been allowed to weigh up the data collected have formulated a similar opinion, and are prepared to do likewise.
This big-scale plump for the, electric may be regarded with mixed feelings by the builders of petrol and steam vehicles. But there is no occasion for apprehension upon their part The Midland. Railway maintains a fleet, of 21 petrol vehicles in addition to a. few steamers, and the SUM of their deliberations and experience is that the electric alone is able to fulfil the duty for which it has been selected to the best advantage. It is not being adopted at the expense of its petrol or steam contemporaries. It is merely being exploited for a purpose to which neither of the rivals could., be profitably applied and to eliminate the bore. . In other words, the issue has been "horse or electric 7"—and the electric has gained the day.
. For city and town work, so far a's it affects railway working, the electric has things all its own way. It accelerates quickly, and is able' to take advantageof any breaks which 'pay occur in a moving stream of traffic, the pace of which, be it remembered, is set by
the slowest horse in that stream. have been able to peruse an interesting record and -graph of tests which were carried" out by the'MidIand engineers.
Advantages of the Electric.
It refers to the acceleration of a petrol and electric vehicle respectively, of similar carrying capacity; bath starting side by side from rest. In Order, to set the petrol vehicle upon a, fair rating it was placed in.thehandS. of a skilful driver. The electric got away and, from the absence of change -speed gear mechanism, was quickly going all out. With the petrol vehicle, however, although gears were changed slickly; and the drop in speed at each change was very slight, by the time top speed had been reached and the vehicle had settled down into its gait, the-electric rival had
034 travelled 88 ft., .whereas the petrol lorry had only covered 60 It. Of course, from this point onwards, the petrol lorry quickly overtook its rival.
But consider the conditions of a busy thoroughfare in a street or town. There are not many gaps in a. continuously-moving stream of traffic exceeding 50 ft. A faster horse 'behind the slower leader whips ahead when a break'•occurs, thus reducing the line to a series
of short breaks with short open reaches. These interruptions give the electric its chance, -and, accordingly,
by virtue of its rapid acceleratien, it is able to get into these breaks, career along at. high speed throughout' their distance, slow clown, and await the next opportunity to get ahead. Thus the electric is able to advance by a series of spasmodic short bursts of high speed, even through the densest traffic, and where the petrol vehicle could never show to advantage. The railway in question has proved this in another manner. There is a considerable .volume of traffic flowing between Woolwich and the depot at St. Pancras. Both electric and petrol vehicles are put into this service. The first-named, it may be mentioned, 'has a speed capaeity of 20 miles an hour, as against the 12 miles maximum which can be notched by the electric ; yet the running time between the two Shows no appreciable difference, proving conclusively that the petrol vehicle is deprived, 'owing to street congestion, from taking advantage of its high turn of speed, whereas, on the other hand, the electric is able to profit from its lower maximum rating.
The petrol vehicle establiehes its value, from its higher speed capacity, in moving bulk loads between two points, separated by an appreciable distance.
But even here there is a minimum at which the petrel machine is inferior to the electric. For inStance, it
has been ascertained as more remunerative to maintain the service-between the Midland depot at Manchester and Trafford Park by electries, 'although the distance traversed offers four miles clear run.
The journey is made three times daily. In this case the uninterrupted run is merely a, part of the duty. At Trafford Park, the round of customers has to be Made, dropping rind picking .up goods, involving waitS and delays of fluctuating duration, but the effects of which are not so adversely felt under electric as 'under petrol . propulsion. In another instance, there is a. clear through run of seven miles between the railway sta tion and the distributing point as represented by a,
village. Here, again,' the electric has proved superior. 'A 5-ton vehicle is used', in this service, together with a -trailer carrying 30 cwt,, so that the paving load is 6i tong per journey. .
Topographical conditions also exert an appreciable influence upon the issue. As a ease in point, Sheffield
may be cited. Here the railway depot is situate in the bottom of a saucer, the sides of which give hard going. Four vehicles have been put.in-to service here.
, two 2-tonners and two 3)a-tannersrespectively, and they are giving a highly-satisfactory showing..
Critics may be disposed to argue that the electric is scoring at the moment awing to the inflated. cost of petrol. But, as a, 'matter of fact, the petrol lorry is not being so handicapped in the Midland Railway service ae elsewhere. The company is able to produce its own liquid .fuel, the light hydro-carbon distillate • arising from the manufacture of gas' for railway carriage lighting from coal-oil,. and which is obtained at a very low figure. But the main fact, from the Midland Railway'a point of view., is the striking displacement of horses Which ,the electric has aSsured. In the .London area some of the.lighter.vehicles: are now doing work which formerly 'required the ennibined effort of six horses', and the metropolitan costs are showing a good saving:
as a result of the conversion. Ten parcel vehicles
'have displaced: a, stable of. 61 horses-52 Werkhag and 9 restinge-and 13 vans: The saving effected by thus working this section of traffic electrically aggregates 2.2,350, or 200. per vehicle,• '